Between the Galaxy S25+ and the iPhone 16 Plus, there are several factors to consider while making a purchase. Let’s break down all of them to determine which phone suits you better.
Price and Availability
The Galaxy S25+ (256GB) is available for $999.99 on the company’s official website. Pre-orders are live, and the phone will be available in stores on February 7, 2025. Apple released the iPhone 16 Plus (128GB) in September 2024 for $899. It is currently available on the company’s official website and third-party retailers, such as Best Buy and Walmart.
Galaxy S25+ Is Smaller, Slimmer, and Lighter
Holding the Galaxy S25+ and the iPhone 16 Plus together, you’ll realize that the phones are quite different in terms of design.
While Samsung’s flagship has a vertically-stacked array of flushed camera sensors on its Gorilla Glass Victus 2 back, the iPhone 16 has a pill-shaped camera island from which the lenses protrude.
On the Android flagship, the power and the volume rockers are located on the right of the screen (on the Armor aluminum 2 frame), while on the iPhone, the volume rockers are placed to the left (on the textured aluminum frame). Speaking of buttons, the iPhone 16 Plus has an additional programmable Action Button.
Regarding dimensions, the Galaxy S25+ is about 2.5mm shorter, 2mm narrower, and 0.5mm slimmer than the iPhone 16 Plus. It is also around nine grams lighter, making it slightly easier to carry.
Although both phones have an official IP68 dust and water resistance rating, the iPhone 16 Plus offers higher water resistance. It can survive up to 6m of water for 30 minutes. The S25+ is rated to survive in up to 1.5m of water for 30 minutes.
The Galaxy handset is available in seven colors, including regular ones like Icyblue, Mint, Navy, and Silver Shadow, and online-exclusive ones like Blueblack, Coralred, and Pinkgold. Apple also offers several vibrant color options, including Ultramarine, Teal, Pink, White, and Black.
Want a Brighter and Smoother Screen? Get the S25+
Even though both phones offer a 6.7-inch OLED screen, there are multiple differences worth considering. First, the S25+ offers a Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel that supports a variable refresh rate (1-120Hz).
In contrast, the iPhone 16 Plus has a Super Retina XDR screen that offers a 60Hz refresh rate (that’s downright shameful for a phone that costs $899).
Second, the panel on Galaxy can achieve 2,600 nits of peak brightness. However, the iPhone can only go up to 2,000 nits. On top of that, the Samsung handset has a resolution of 3,120 x 1,440 (513 ppi), much higher than the 2,796 x 1,290 pixels (460 ppi) on the iPhone.
The S25+ also has noticeably thinner bezels and provides always-on functionality. Last but not least, the AMOLED panel on the S25+ allows for an ultrasonic under-display fingerprint scanner.
One unique feature of the iPhone 16’s display is Dynamic Island, a clever implementation of hardware and software that makes the pill-shaped notch on the handset interactive. The feature helps track Live Activities, monitor timers, and control music playback (all from the notch).
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite vs. Apple A18
Both the Galaxy S25+ and the iPhone 16 Plus provide top-notch performance. The S25+ does it with the help of an overclocked version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite (3nm) chipset, while the iPhone 16 does it with the A18 (3nm) processor.
With two 4.47 GHz prime cores (up from 4.32 GHz on the regular version), a faster Adreno 830 GPU, and a more capable NPU, the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy provides unmatched performance in the Android sphere, both for regular and AI-based workflows.
The chipset runs alongside 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage.
On the other hand, the A18 system-on-chip features two 4.04 GHz prime cores, a five-core GPU capable of handling AAA video games, and a 16-core Neural Engine. Combined, these make the A18 one of the fastest chipsets on a non-Pro iPhone.
The iPhone 16 Plus has 8GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 512GB of NVMe storage. Both manufacturers have also improved the heat management system for prolonged usage. Moreover, you should expect similar performance from both chipsets.
It doesn’t matter what you throw at them—4K video editing/rendering, demanding video games, or heavy multitasking—they can handle it all without a flinch. However, with 50% more memory, the S25+ should be able to retain more apps in its memory.
Apple Intelligence Isn’t Quite There (Yet)
Agentic AI for the Galaxy S25 series remained a key focus at the Galaxy Unpacked event on January 22, 2025. For the first time, the Galaxy flagships have gained the ability to executive multi-step tasks.
These involve understanding natural language and processing different data types, such as text, speech, photos, and videos, and the improved Gemini on the S25 series can do it all. Ask the AI voice assistant to fetch details about an upcoming concert and add them to the Samsung or Google Calendar, and it should do the job without any problems.
You can share a picture with Gemini and ask for tips for better composition, ask it to control system settings like font size or screen brightness, and access other features or services across apps.
The Galaxy S25+ offers an updated version of Circle to Search (which can recognize any call-to-action details on the screen). Of course, the phone also has all the other Galaxy AI features. Moreover, Samsung has set a new benchmark for what agentic AI can do on a smartphone.
Now, when I use Apple Intelligence on my iPhone 16, I feel it could use some upgrades. That’s not to say that the AI features on the iPhone 16 Plus aren’t helpful. In fact, Genmoji and Visual Intelligence are among my favorite Apple Intelligence features so far.
Other features include Writing Tools, Image Playground, Clean Up for pictures, and Webpage Summaries. While Apple has provided Siri with access to ChatGPT’s reasoning abilities, it doesn’t have on-screen awareness (which is already present on the S25+).
Most recently, Apple also paused Notification Summaries for news and entertainment apps due to inaccurate results. In conclusion, the Galaxy S25+ is the better AI phone unless Apple turns things around with future iOS updates.
Galaxy S25+ Offers an Additional Telephoto Camera
On the S25+, you get a 50MP (f/1.8) primary sensor, a 12MP (f/2.2, 120°) ultrawide sensor, and a 10MP (f/2.4) tertiary sensor with a 3x optical zoom lens. On the front, Samsung provides a 12MP (f/2.2) selfie shooter with autofocus.
With the setup, you can shoot pictures in the zoom range of 0.5x to 30x and record 8K 30 fps videos. The phone can now record better low-light videos, offers the new Audio Eraser feature for removing background noises, and a new aperture control button in Expert RAW mode.
The iPhone 16 Plus sports a 48MP (f/1.6, OIS) primary camera that allows 2x lossless zoom and a 12MP (f/2.2) ultrawide sensor that doubles as a macro shooter. On the front, you get a 12MP (f/1.9, OIS) selfie shooter. If you look at the aperture values, the iPhone’s main and front cameras should capture better low-light pictures.
Regarding features, the iPhone 16 Plus can shoot 4K Dolby Vision videos at 60 fps, provides sensor-shift stabilization (which is considered better than optical image stabilization) on the primary sensor, and has the Audio Mix feature to fine-tune the audio recordings of a video.
You also get a new Camera Control button, but that’s only useful for people who capture photos regularly.
Both Phones Should Offer Equally Good Battery Life
With a 4,900 mAh battery, the S25+ lasts up to 30 hours of video playback. Further, the phone supports 45W wired charging via its USB Type-C 3.2 port, 15W wireless charging, and reverse wireless charging. It is worth mentioning that the handset doesn’t fully comply with the Qi2 standards, as it doesn’t have a magnetic ring within the phone’s casing.
The iPhone 16 Plus, on the other hand, has a 4,674 mAh battery cell that can last up to 27 hours of video playback. While the wired charging rate via the USB Type-C 2.0 port is limited to 25W, Apple has upgraded the MagSafe charging rate to 25W (with a 30W adapter). Further, the iPhone also supports Qi2 wireless charging.
Which Phone Is Right for You?
If you’ve been a Samsung user for the longest time and use a lot of Android devices or accessories, you should seriously consider the S25+. Its pros include a brighter screen, exceptional raw processing power, a versatile camera system, and seven years of promised OS/security upgrades.
However, if you prefer iOS over Android, already have an Apple ecosystem, and are okay with using a smartphone with not as many AI-based features, you can’t go wrong with the iPhone 16 Plus. The smartphone lets you enjoy AAA video games, offers Face ID for biometric authentication, and should get at least five to six years of iOS updates from Apple.
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Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus is a premium smartphone with a 6.7-inch QHD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X display and a 120Hz refresh rate. It features the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, 12GB of RAM, and a 4,900mAh battery with 45W Super Fast Charging 2.0.
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Apple iPhone 16
Apple’s newest iPhone featuring a camera button, programmable action button, and artificial intelligence features.
